


Out of the deep freezer, into the Civil War

by etux



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Captain America: Civil War Trailer, Established Relationship, Idk what to tag this as, M/M, and now i'm dead inside, civil war spoilers, i just wrote this because i've watched the trailer too many times
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-26
Updated: 2015-11-26
Packaged: 2018-05-03 13:12:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5292149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etux/pseuds/etux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“You have to go soon, or are you actually able to spend some quality time with me?” Steve asks. “Conspiring against the government and other totally normal boyfriend stuff?”</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Because the world might be ready to sacrifice Bucky Barnes for what he did as the Winter Soldier, but Steve Rogers would rather watch the world burn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out of the deep freezer, into the Civil War

**Author's Note:**

> I told myself I wouldn't write anything about Civil War before the movie actually comes out. But then Marvel released the trailer. And now I'm here. Making the trailer even gayer than it was. ~~if that's even possible~~

Steve keeps scanning his surroundings, trying to spot a familiar red head. Of course it’s not efficient. Natasha is a professional in keeping out of sight when it’s needed

“I know how much… _Bucky_ means to you”, there’s not much of a pause before Bucky’s name, not really, but there _is_ something in the way the name rolls of Natasha’s tongue. Like she isn’t used to it. Like she’d rather call him something else, but is only trying to please Steve with her choice of words. Steve tries hard not to grimace. _Tries._ “Stay out of this one. Please. You’ll only make this worse.”

And oh boy, does Steve know that. Of course he’s making it worse. There _isn’t_ a way to make it better. It’s a shit situation all over, and there’s nothing Steve can do to save it.

But there’s still _someone_ he can safe.

“You saying you’ll arrest me?” Steve asks, and casts one last glance over his shoulder. He doesn’t try to make his tone so dry, but it happens. He doesn’t understand Natasha. It wasn’t long ago that she defended the takedown of SHIELD in front of the very same people she now so eagerly obeys. There’s something off about her actions.

But then again, there’s something off about the whole situation. Friends fighting against each other? Steve can’t say that’s something he enjoys. 

He doesn’t like bullies. But somewhere between alien invasions and casual city-dropping, he has grown to like all of the Avengers. He knows that even Tony Stark isn’t a bully in any way, no matter what kind of impression he tries to give off.

“Steve”, Natasha says, and if he didn’t know for better, Steve would say she’s actually worried about him. “You do have options. Please, consider them.”

And then she hangs up.

Steve stuffs his phone in the pocket of his leather jacket, and starts walking. He replays Natasha’s words in his head with a bitter smile on his lips. Sam said something along those lines to him just a couple of days earlier. But the difference is, Sam understands.

He doesn’t necessarily agree, no, but he _gets_ it. And is ready to follow Steve into this preposterous fight. Civil War, the media is calling it. Superheroes turned against each other. Others fighting for their right to remain anonymous and therefore safe from the government organisations. Others demanding a system to maintain peace and order.

If only their so called peace didn’t require an offering to the almighty government.

Because the world might be ready to sacrifice Bucky Barnes for what he did as the Winter Soldier, but Steve Rogers would rather watch the world burn.

It isn’t fair, the way the world keeps giving him things and taking them away.  
First he got Bucky, all scraped knees and crooked smiles, standing between Steve and some schoolyard bully in all his six-year-old glory. Then he lost his mother to tuberculosis.

He gets a healthy body and new power to do something right. Bucky falls from a train.

He saves New York and goes in ice, gets some peace. He wakes up in a new century, with everybody he ever knew either dead or having lived the life he missed.

He gets Bucky back.

And then they want to crucify him _to set an example_. To show what happens to those who don’t play by their rules. To scare the rest of the superheroes to obedience.

Never mind that Bucky didn’t have any choice in his actions. That he is the longest serving POW in history. That things like identity and free will were beaten and tortured and fucking _brainwashed_ out of him.

Steve kicks a lamp post in his anger. It might be a little crooked after, but he doesn’t care. Just keeps on walking. Everything about this damn situation has him on the edge.

Even the sunglasses keep annoying him. His serum-improved sight focuses too easily on the fingerprints and tiny scratches on the lenses, drawing his attention away from everything around him.

He’s just about to take the glasses off and probably throw them in the nearest dumpster when someone lays a hand on his right shoulder. He turns his head to smile at a familiar face, and the nasty feeling in his stomach eases a bit.

“Buck”, he breathes out, and can’t help but slid his left arm around Bucky’s waist. The red velvet hoodie hides at least three knives and two guns. Knowing this new Bucky, probably more.

“Keep walking”, Bucky tells him, and Steve does just that. He hasn’t seen Bucky in almost a week. And even then it was just one short, stolen moment in a crowded Starbucks.

“How’s being on the run?” Steve asks, keeping his tone casual and smile easy. It’s not likely that someone is going to listen to their conversation, not when they meet like this, in busy and public places, but it’s still a possibility. And the less they draw attention to themselves, the better. If someone recognizes Bucky as the Winter Soldier and reports it… Steve really doesn’t want to fight in the middle of a street full of civilians, but he will do it if he has to.

He’d do _anything_ for this man, really. Sometimes it scares him. The other times it just seems natural. Like the way things should be.

“Better than being in a fucking deep freezer”, Bucky shrugs, and Steve barks a laugh even though it’s not actually funny. But joking has always been the way the two of them have survived in this god damned world. Their humour might be as bitter and black as the coffee Steve makes himself first thing every morning, but if it’s what keeps Bucky here, even remotely sane and put-together, Steve will take it. He will take it all.

“Anything new come up?” Steve asks as they cross a street. Bucky has thrown his right arm around Steve’s shoulders, and their sides are practically glued together. Random bypassers probably see them as a normal couple.

The thought makes Steve smile.

“Nah”, Bucky shakes his head. “Keepin’ my eyes and ears open. I still got some old HYDRA bases to raid. There might be some files on me left. Gotta keep those out of the hands of… well, pretty much anyone.”

Steve nods. Bucky still doesn’t have all of his memories back, and the early years of the Winter Soldier are the haziest, what with all the mind-wiping and lobotomies. The assassinations the Winter Soldier did under HYDRA’s orders were in the SHIELD files, but who knows what the soviets made him do.

“You have to go soon, or are you actually able to spend some quality time with me?” Steve asks. “Conspiring against the government and other totally normal boyfriend stuff?”

“Boyfriend”, Bucky snorts and rolls his eyes. “You don’t think it’s weird to call someone who’s over ninety years old a _boyfriend_?”

Steve shoves him playfully, and Bucky laughs before getting serious again.

“No but really”, he says, and the look he gives Steve is more than a bit pained. “I have to go _now_. I shouldn’t have come at all, but I just had to- you know-”

And then Bucky kisses him, square and hard on the lips, before letting go of him and disappearing in a matter of seconds. Steve is left to continue his walking alone. Bucky has never been good at goodbyes. It’s unfortunate, the way he just _goes_ , but it’s something Steve can live with.

He knows Bucky will always come back, after all.

They have been falling for and from each other since before the 1930s, and if crashing planes and decades of brainwashing haven’t kept them apart, something Fox News likes to call a superhero Civil War won’t either.


End file.
